If it’s an Election Day, that means it’s time for another installment of Daily Kos Elections’ county benchmarks. These benchmarks are a tool that help you estimate, as partial early results come in, whether candidates are hitting their marks for what they need to win statewide.
This year, we’re focusing on a mix of both presidential swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) and states with key Senate races (Colorado, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina) as well as, of course, the ones that have both (Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas) or, in the case of Georgia, a state with a close presidential race and two key Senate races!
The benchmarks are a solution to a problem you may have experienced: watching a race that’s expected to be close but, in the early going, suddenly finding that your preferred candidate is losing when you look at the total numbers. If you dig into county-level reporting, however, you might notice that mostly the smaller, rural counties are reporting first. To do that, you need to know the names of the larger counties you should actually watch, and that’s one thing that the benchmarks do.
The other way the benchmarks help you is that when the larger counties start reporting, you can use them to see if the numbers that they’re reporting are coming in at the right level for your preferred candidate. That way, you can get a good early sense of how the race is going, before a majority of the votes have reported (which, again, is especially important in states where the rural areas tend to report first).
The way this all works is that for each table, you’ll see three columns of numbers. The left one is the percentage of the state’s total votes that come from each particular county. (They include only the counties that represent 2% or more of a state’s total vote, so you can weed out the clutter, though collectively, these small counties can add up—more on that below.)
The middle column is the target the Democratic candidate should be shooting for, usually in order to shoot for 49% to 50% statewide and the barest possible majority. Finally, the right-hand column is the 2016 result, so you understand the baseline for the current 2020 estimates.
This all operates at the level of rough estimates, just for the benefit of advanced election-watchers. Actual professional campaigns use much more precise and granular information for setting targets, often at the precinct level and relying on voter file data.
One of the drawbacks of a simple method like this one is that swings don’t occur uniformly across an entire state. One recent election where we found this out the hard way was 2016, where Hillary Clinton, in many states, actually hit most of the large-county benchmarks that I calculated, but where she came up short in the many rural counties that are too small for inclusion on these lists and where she essentially died of a thousand small cuts.
Another potential problem here is that in urban counties, a candidate can hit the correct benchmarks in terms of percentage of vote share but fall off the pace in terms of turnout, as happened in Milwaukee and Detroit in 2016. The opposite is also possible: In last year’s race for governor in Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear fell below his benchmarks but still won by running up huge raw vote totals in the cities. That’s why the benchmark for each county’s share of the state’s total votes is important data, though unfortunately it’s hard to tell whether you’ve hit the right mark on turnout until all the votes have been counted.
The biggest potential difficulty of all, though, has been magnified by the pandemic and Donald Trump. We know that Democrats prefer mail and early voting while Republicans prefer to cast their ballots on Election Day. Each of these different bucks of votes, however, are generally reported at different times, with early votes and some mail votes typically appearing first, followed by Election Day votes, and then later-arriving mail votes.
We could therefore see results that initially lean Democratic, then shift toward the GOP, then tilt back toward Democrats. But that’s just one potential arc. Because every state has different rules that govern its vote-counting procedures, and because partisan preferences for voting method are by no means set in stone, the flow of results could vary distinctly from state to state.
One last caveat: Two states that you might be looking for, but unfortunately couldn’t be included, are Alaska and Maine, both of which have competitive Senate races. Alaska simply doesn’t have counties, so there are no county-level benchmarks to be set. (You might be able to find reporting by legislative district if you look at the state’s elections site, though.) Maine does have counties, but as with the rest of New England, election data in Maine is reported at the town level, so if you went looking for “Cumberland County” or “Penobscot County” real-time data, you’d be very disappointed. (Some of the state’s biggest cities include Portland, Bangor, Auburn, and Lewiston, if you want to look at town-level data.)
ARIZONA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
45/48 |
MARICOPA |
60.2 |
50/49 |
45/48 |
PIMA |
16.2 |
58/41 |
53/40 |
PINAL |
5.0 |
42/57 |
37/56 |
YAVAPAI |
4.4 |
36/63 |
31/62 |
MOHAVE |
3.1 |
28/72 |
22/73 |
COCONINO |
2.3 |
60/35 |
54/35 |
YUMA |
2.0 |
52/47 |
46/47 |
Let’s talk further about the methodology here. If you’re a regular consumer of our county benchmarks, you might know that in the past it’s usually been a very simple math process. For instance, in Arizona, Clinton’s 45/48 result in 2016 would be turned into a 50/43 target in 2020, accomplished by adding 5 to the 2016 Democratic vote share in each county and subtracting 5 from the GOP vote share in each county.
However, 50/43 isn’t a very realistic target, because we have a more conventional election this year, with less-disliked candidates, and it’s highly unlikely that third-party candidates this year will take 7% of the total vote, as they did four years ago. The third-party vote might still end up at about 2%, though, so I’ll generally be modeling to either 50/49 or 49/49 this year.
What I’ve therefore done this year is create an intermediate step (which I’m not showing in the table, to minimize onscreen clutter, but I’ll describe the process to make it more transparent), where, in Arizona, I would first add 3 to both sides of the 2016 result, so 45/48 becomes 48/51, and the two-party share gets bumped up to 99%, which is more typical in most elections.
It’s possible, of course, that the split in 2016 wasn’t exactly half-and-half; in other words, the number of Democrats defecting to the Greens or Libertarians in 2016 might not have been equal to the number of Republicans defecting to Libertarians or Evan McMullin’s campaign. There’s no good way to figure that out with any certainty, though, so I’m simply splitting the difference equally.
Only then do I switch over to the old method, where I would add 2 to the Democratic side and subtract 2 to the GOP side, to bring the target vote share to 50/49 that would get Joe Biden and/or Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly across the finish line by the barest margin possible.
If you apply this method to Pima County (home of Tucson), you’d see that in 2016, the county went 53/40 for Clinton. After the intermediate step, that becomes 56/43 for Clinton. Adding 2 to the Democratic side and subtracting 2 from the Republican side, that gets turned into a 58/41 target for 2018. As you’ll note, no correction is needed in the state’s largest county, Maricopa County; that’s because more than half of the state’s population lives there, so naturally it’s going to have a very similar vote share percentage breakdown as the state as a whole.
COLORADO
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/48 |
48/43 |
DENVER |
11.9 |
75/24 |
74/19 |
JEFFERSON |
11.8 |
50/47 |
49/42 |
EL PASO |
11.5 |
35/61 |
34/56 |
ARAPAHOE |
10.9 |
54/44 |
53/39 |
LARIMER |
7.0 |
49/48 |
48/43 |
ADAMS |
7.0 |
51/46 |
50/41 |
BOULDER |
6.8 |
71/27 |
70/22 |
DOUGLAS |
6.7 |
38/60 |
37/55 |
WELD |
4.9 |
35/62 |
34/57 |
PUEBLO |
2.8 |
47/51 |
46/46 |
MESA |
2.7 |
29/69 |
28/64
|
Colorado appears to have graduated from swing-state status to safely blue at the presidential level, which is pretty amazing for a state that was red for decades until 2008 (with a brief blip in 1992). But it does have a key Senate race, although Democrat John Hickenlooper is looking pretty likely to defeat Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. With much of the state’s population concentrated in the Front Range, Hickenlooper’s easiest path means winning decisively in Denver and Boulder, winning narrowly in the inner suburbs (Adams, Arapahoe, and Jefferson Counties), and not getting blown out in Colorado Springs (El Paso County) or Denver’s exurbs (Douglas and Weld Counties).
FLORIDA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
47/49 |
MIAMI-DADE |
10.4 |
65/34 |
63/34 |
BROWARD |
8.8 |
68/31 |
66/31 |
PALM BEACH |
7.0 |
58/41 |
56/41 |
HILLSBOROUGH |
6.3 |
54/45 |
52/45 |
ORANGE |
5.8 |
62/35 |
60/35 |
PINELLAS |
5.2 |
49/48 |
47/48 |
DUVAL |
4.6 |
49/48 |
47/48 |
LEE |
3.5 |
40/58 |
38/58 |
BREVARD |
3.4 |
40/57 |
38/57 |
POLK |
3.0 |
43/55 |
41/55 |
VOLUSIA |
2.8 |
43/54 |
41/54 |
PASCO |
2.6 |
39/58 |
37/58 |
SARASOTA |
2.4 |
44/54 |
42/54 |
SEMINOLE |
2.4 |
49/48 |
47/48
|
Hey, did you know there’s a close race in Florida this year? I know, that’s so weird; it’s never happened before! Ordinarily, the path to victory for Democrats in Florida means running in the 60s in the three mega-counties of the Miami area (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) as well as That Other Orange County (the one that has Orlando in it). It also means holding serve in the St. Petersburg and Jacksonville areas (Pinellas and Duval Counties, respectively), while riding out the GOP onslaught in the state’s smaller counties.
This year’s number mix might be a little different, though, based on district-level polling we’ve seen, which has seen Biden underperforming Clinton somewhat in the Cuban community in Miami but dramatically overperforming Clinton in the “I-4 Corridor” suburbs like Pinellas and Seminole Counties.
GEORGIA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
45/50 |
FULTON |
10.6 |
73/26 |
68/27 |
COBB |
8.1 |
53/45 |
48/46 |
GWINNETT |
8.0 |
55/43 |
50/44 |
DEKALB |
7.7 |
84/15 |
79/16 |
CHATHAM |
2.7 |
60/39 |
55/40 |
CHEROKEE |
2.7 |
27/71 |
22/72 |
HENRY |
2.4 |
55/45 |
50/46 |
FORSYTH |
2.4 |
29/70 |
24/71 |
CLAYTON |
2.3 |
88/12 |
84/14 |
Georgia has not one but two Senate races this year, and modeling to 50% is especially important in this one because state law mandates that if no candidate wins a majority, the top two finishers have to advance to a runoff, both in the special election and the regularly scheduled one. The presidential race isn’t subject to that requirement, but in Georgia, it’s shaping up to be one of the closest races in the nation.
One step to winning the Peach State is to run up the score in Atlanta and its closest suburbs. Interestingly, Fulton County, where most of Atlanta is, is also home to a lot of affluent, mostly white areas and isn’t quite as blue as two of its neighboring counties that have larger African American majorities.
The other step is to win in the Atlanta area’s affluent, but rapidly diversifying, outer suburbs in Cobb and Gwinnett Counties—preferably in the upper 50s if not higher. (Stacey Abrams hit those same benchmarks above in Cobb and Gwinnett but still fell a smidge short in the 2018 gubernatorial race anyway, thanks to Republican strength in the rural areas and, probably, GOP voter suppression.) For more detail on this pathway, my colleague Steve Singiser has written a full-length piece on what to watch in Georgia.
IOWA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
42/51 |
POLK |
14.8 |
60/38 |
52/40 |
LINN |
7.5 |
58/39 |
50/41 |
SCOTT |
5.5 |
55/43 |
47/45 |
JOHNSON |
4.9 |
73/25 |
65/27 |
BLACK HAWK |
4.1 |
58/41 |
50/43 |
DUBUQUE |
3.2 |
54/45 |
46/47 |
STORY |
3.2 |
59/36 |
51/38 |
WOODBURY |
2.8 |
45/55 |
37/57 |
POTTAWATTAMIE |
2.7 |
44/55 |
36/57 |
DALLAS |
2.4 |
49/49 |
41/51 |
The perennial swing state of Iowa has both one of the nation’s closest presidential races and a key Senate race, though Democratic Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield seems to be running just ahead of Biden. As you can see from the table, most of the state’s small cities are modestly blue, with only Iowa City (in Johnson County) a Democratic stronghold. But Biden and Greenfield need to win basically all of them, except for the redder Council Bluffs and Sioux City (Pottawattamie and Woodbury Counties, respectively), in order to compensate for the much redder rural counties. Steve also has a deep dive into the key counties in Iowa if you’d like to explore further.
KANSAS
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
36/56 |
JOHNSON |
24.6 |
57/40 |
44/47 |
SEDGWICK |
16.1 |
49/47 |
36/54 |
SHAWNEE |
6.4 |
57/40 |
44/47 |
DOUGLAS |
4.2 |
75/22 |
62/29 |
WYANDOTTE |
4.1 |
74/25 |
61/32 |
LEAVENWORTH |
2.6 |
46/51 |
33/58 |
BUTLER |
2.3 |
37/62 |
24/69 |
RENO |
2.1 |
41/56 |
28/63 |
Kansas is here because of its competitive Senate race, although a good night will also see the Sunflower State pull into the single digits in its presidential race. Leading the way in Kansas’s slow move toward becoming a swing state is Johnson County, where most of Kansas City’s affluent suburbs are located. This was long the state’s stronghold of mainstream Republicanism, but Democrat Laura Kelly won the county 55-38 en route to her victory in 2018’s gubernatorial race.
Democratic Senate hopeful Barbara Bollier will also need to dominate in Kansas City, Lawrence, and Topeka (Wyandotte, Douglas, and Shawnee Counties, respectively) and squeak out a narrow win in Wichita (Sedgwick County, the state’s second most populous county) because the entire rest of the state is very red.
MICHIGAN
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
47/47 |
WAYNE |
16.2 |
68/31 |
66/29 |
OAKLAND |
13.9 |
53/46 |
51/43 |
MACOMB |
8.7 |
44/56 |
42/54 |
KENT |
6.4 |
47/50 |
45/48 |
GENESEE |
4.1 |
54/45 |
52/43 |
WASHTENAW |
3.9 |
70/29 |
68/27 |
OTTAWA |
3.0 |
33/64 |
31/62 |
INGHAM |
2.7 |
62/35 |
60/33 |
KALAMAZOO |
2.6 |
55/42 |
53/40 |
LIVINGSTON |
2.2 |
34/64 |
32/62 |
In Michigan, it’s worth watching both the presidential and Senate races, though polls suggest Biden and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters are on track to win by mid to high single-digits. Detroit (in Wayne County) is key, though the real impact here might not be its vote share rather turnout—and specifically, whether it can exceed 16.2% of the state’s total vote, its share in 2016. (In 2012, by contrast, Wayne was 17.2% of Michigan’s total en route to Barack Obama’s 9-point win, a figure similar to Biden’s current polling lead in the state.)
You’ll also want to keep an eye on Macomb County in Detroit’s blue-collar suburbs, which is one of the nation's largest counties to flip from Obama to Trump. Clinton did so poorly here that Biden doesn’t need to actually flip it back in order to win statewide, but this is one of those areas that seems tailor-made for a big Biden bounce back.
MONTANA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
35/56 |
YELLOWSTONE |
14.0 |
46/51 |
31/58 |
MISSOULA |
12.1 |
67/30 |
52/37 |
GALLATIN |
10.7 |
60/37 |
45/44 |
FLATHEAD |
9.5 |
43/57 |
28/64 |
LEWIS & CLARK |
7.0 |
56/41 |
41/48 |
CASCADE |
6.9 |
50/50 |
35/57 |
RAVALLI |
4.5 |
42/58 |
28/66 |
SILVER BOW |
3.3 |
67/32 |
52/39 |
LAKE |
2.6 |
51/49 |
36/57 |
We’re including Montana because of its very important Senate race, where Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock could eke out a victory against Republican Sen. Steve Daines. Montana isn’t expected to be close in the presidential race; polls here have shown the margin in high single digits, which is a dramatic improvement over 2016, but that’s still a steep climb to 50%. Winning in Montana requires running up the score in the college towns (Missoula and Bozeman, in Gallatin County) while staying close in the more blue-collar cities (Billings and Great Falls, in Yellowstone and Cascade Counties, respectively) in order to stave off the heavily red rural counties.
NORTH CAROLINA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
46/50 |
WAKE |
11.1 |
60/36 |
57/37 |
MECKLENBURG |
10.0 |
65/32 |
62/33 |
GUILFORD |
5.4 |
61/37 |
58/38 |
FORSYTH |
3.8 |
56/42 |
53/43 |
DURHAM |
3.3 |
81/17 |
78/18 |
BUNCOMBE |
2.9 |
57/39 |
54/40 |
CUMBERLAND |
2.7 |
59/39 |
56/40 |
NEW HANOVER |
2.4 |
49/48 |
46/49 |
UNION |
2.2 |
35/62 |
32/63 |
GASTON |
2.0 |
35/63 |
32/64 |
North Carolina has not just a very competitive presidential race and a key Senate race, but also a contested gubernatorial race, though Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is favored to win reelection. Biden and Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham will need to hit the 60% mark in almost all of the state’s major cities in order to win statewide, considering how red much of the rural areas are (North Carolina does have a number of heavily Black rural counties in its northeast, though they’re all too small to register on this chart). One smaller city to keep an eye on is Wilmington (in New Hanover County), a longtime conservative stronghold where Cooper won in 2016 and that may be poised to flip at the presidential level.
OHIO
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
43/51 |
CUYAHOGA |
11.0 |
71/28 |
65/30 |
FRANKLIN |
10.6 |
66/32 |
60/34 |
HAMILTON |
7.4 |
59/40 |
53/42 |
SUMMIT |
4.7 |
58/41 |
52/43 |
MONTGOMERY |
4.7 |
53/46 |
47/48 |
LUCAS |
3.6 |
62/36 |
56/38 |
STARK |
3.2 |
45/54 |
39/56 |
BUTLER |
3.2 |
40/59 |
34/61 |
LORAIN |
2.5 |
54/46 |
48/48 |
WARREN |
2.1 |
35/64 |
29/66 |
LAKE |
2.1 |
46/53 |
40/55 |
MAHONING |
2.1 |
55/44 |
49/46 |
There’s no Senate race in Ohio, but we’re including it because of its perennial bellwether status in the presidential race. While Biden’s main task is to crush it in the Democratic strongholds of Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties (Cleveland and Columbus, respectively), you might also keep an eye on more blue-collar counties like Lorain and Mahoning (the latter is home of Youngstown).
These were Democratic strongholds in the past and gave Clinton only very narrow wins in 2016, but they now seem poised to snap back significantly with Biden at the top of the ticket. Biden will also want to come close in Lake County, Cleveland’s more affluent affluent suburbs, though it hasn’t moved much in the Democratic direction during the Trump era, unlike a wide variety of suburbs elsewhere in the country.
PENNSYLVANIA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
47/48 |
PHILADELPHIA |
11.5 |
84/16 |
82/15 |
ALLEGHENY |
10.7 |
59/40 |
56/39 |
MONTGOMERY |
7.1 |
61/38 |
58/37 |
BUCKS |
5.6 |
51/49 |
48/48 |
DELAWARE |
4.9 |
62/38 |
59/37 |
CHESTER |
4.4 |
55/44 |
52/43 |
LANCASTER |
4.0 |
40/57 |
37/56 |
YORK |
3.4 |
36/63 |
33/62 |
BERKS |
3.0 |
46/53 |
43/52 |
WESTMORELAND |
3.0 |
35/65 |
33/64 |
LEHIGH |
2.6 |
53/46 |
50/45 |
NORTHAMPTON |
2.3 |
49/51 |
46/50 |
LUZERNE |
2.2 |
42/59 |
39/58 |
ERIE |
2.0 |
49/49 |
46/48 |
CUMBERLAND |
2.0 |
41/57 |
38/56 |
Pennsylvania has no Senate race this year, but as usual, it’s one of the linchpins (or you might even call it a keystone, if you will) of the presidential race. Biden needs to do what Clinton narrowly failed to do in 2016, which is to run up the score not just in the big cities but also in Philadelphia’s suburbs (Delaware, Montgomery, and to a lesser extent, Bucks and Chester Counties). That would compensate for the right turn that the counties outside of Pittsburgh in southwestern Pennsylvania, like Westmoreland, have taken. While Lackawanna County (where Biden’s hometown of Scranton is located) is too small to appear on the list, its next-door neighbor Luzerne County is also worth watching to see if Biden’s favorite-son status turns around this large Obama-to-Trump county.
SOUTH CAROLINA
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
49/49 |
41/55 |
GREENVILLE |
10.2 |
43/53 |
35/59 |
CHARLESTON |
8.4 |
59/37 |
51/43 |
RICHLAND |
8.0 |
72/25 |
64/31 |
HORRY |
6.3 |
38/61 |
30/67 |
LeXINGTON |
5.8 |
37/60 |
29/66 |
SPARTANBURG |
5.8 |
41/57 |
33/63 |
YORK |
5.4 |
44/52 |
36/58 |
ANDERSON |
3.8 |
34/64 |
26/70 |
BERKELEY |
3.8 |
47/50 |
39/56 |
BEAUFORT |
3.7 |
49/49 |
41/55 |
AIKEN |
3.6 |
42/55 |
34/61 |
DORCHESTER |
3.0 |
46/50 |
38/56 |
FLORENCE |
2.8 |
54/45 |
46/51 |
PICKENS |
2.3 |
29/68 |
21/74 |
SUMTER |
2.0 |
63/37 |
55/43 |
South Carolina may end up with a single-digit presidential race, but the real story here is the Senate contest, where Democrat Jamie Harrison is neck and neck with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. South Carolina is unique among all the states we’re looking at in that even its most populous county (Greenville) is a red county. To compensate for that, Harrison will need a dominant win in Charleston and come close in its suburbs (Berkeley and Dorchester Counties).
One other source of strength for Harrison that doesn’t show up on the list is that South Carolina has a large number of Black-majority rural counties that run in a belt across the state’s middle; individually, these counties aren’t very populous but taken together they make up much of the state’s 6th Congressional District. Orangeburg is one of the largest of these counties (it’s 1.9% of the state’s total), and Harrison would need to be in the mid-70s here to be on track to win statewide.
There’s also a special caveat for the Palmetto State: Harrison and his allies have been spending heavily to boost Constitution Party candidate Bill Bledsoe as a way of peeling off conservative voters who feel Graham hasn’t been sufficiently loyal to Trump. (Bledsoe dropped out a month ago and endorsed Graham, but his name will still be on the ballot.) If this gambit is successful, Harrison’s win target may fall a few points shy of 50%.
TEXAS
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
43/52 |
HARRIS |
14.6 |
61/39 |
54/42 |
DALLAS |
8.5 |
68/32 |
61/35 |
TARRANT |
7.5 |
50/49 |
43/52 |
BEXAR |
6.6 |
61/38 |
54/41 |
TRAVIS |
5.2 |
73/24 |
66/27 |
COLLIN |
4.0 |
46/53 |
39/56 |
DENTON |
3.3 |
44/54 |
37/57 |
FT. BEND |
2.9 |
58/42 |
51/45 |
EL PASO |
2.4 |
76/23 |
69/26 |
MONTGOMERY |
2.3 |
29/70 |
22/73 |
WILLIAMSON |
2.3 |
49/48 |
42/51 |
After ages waiting for it, the blessed day has arrived: Texas has finally achieved swing-state status. It has a competitive Senate race, where Democrat MJ Hegar has an outside shot at unseating Republican Sen. John Cornyn, but the main event here is the presidential race, which polling indicates will be very close. Basically, Biden needs to replicate Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 map but perform just a smidge better, which requires dominant performances in Houston (Harris County), Dallas, Austin (Travis County), and El Paso, while squeaking out wins in Fort Worth (Tarrant County) and Austin’s suburbs (Williamson County), and coming close in Dallas’s outer suburbs in Collin County. Steve Singiser has also gone into more detail about the key counties in Texas.
WISCONSIN
COUNTY |
% OF 2016
STATEWIDE VOTE |
WHAT Dems NEED
TO BREAK 50% |
2016 PRES.
Results |
STATEWIDE |
--- |
50/49 |
46/47 |
MILWAUKEE |
14.8 |
69/31 |
65/29 |
DANE |
10.4 |
74/25 |
70/23 |
WAUKESHA |
8.0 |
37/62 |
33/60 |
BROWN |
4.3 |
45/54 |
41/52 |
RACINE |
3.2 |
49/51 |
45/50 |
OUTAGAMIE |
3.2 |
45/55 |
41/53 |
WINNEBAGO |
2.9 |
47/52 |
43/50 |
WASHINGTON |
2.6 |
31/69 |
27/67 |
KENOSHA |
2.6 |
51/49 |
47/47 |
ROCK |
2.6 |
56/43 |
52/41 |
MARATHON |
2.3 |
42/58 |
38/56 |
LA CROSSE |
2.1 |
55/43 |
51/41 |
SHEBOYGAN |
2.0 |
42/56 |
38/54 |
Wisconsin, of course, was scene of one of the biggest heartbreakers in the 2016 election and then saw a similarly close race in the 2018 gubernatorial election, though with much better results for Democrats. At least according to current polling, Biden looks to be winning the Badger State much more easily, but the bare minimum he needs to clear the hurdle here is to hit the 70s in Milwaukee and Madison (Dane County), keep it close to 50-50 in the state’s smaller blue-collar cities like Racine, Kenosha, and Oshkosh (Winnebago County), and just keep from getting totally embarrassed in conservative suburbs like Waukesha County (which, contrary to what you’ve heard, isn’t necessarily that crucial for winning).
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